Cooper and Conway clash over CNN's report on Russia briefing

Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night defended CNN's reporting of an intelligence briefing Donald Trump received on Russia against a flurry of attacks by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, hours after the president-elect accused the network of airing "fake news."

During the heated exchange, Trump's former campaign manager and incoming White House adviser repeatedly conflated CNN’s report on a briefing Trump received by the heads of the CIA, FBI and NSA to BuzzFeed’s publishing of a 35-page report detailing salacious and unverifiable information about the president-elect's activities in Russia, which the CNN anchor pushed back on.

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“I’m surprised you're arguing with me. It has not been backed up by credible news sources and you know as well as I do these rumors were running around for months. Every news outlet was chasing these rumors,” Conway said.

“We are not reporting rumors,” Cooper replied.

“Anderson, because CNN went first and had this breathless report, everybody said it was a bombshell, Earth shattering report last night—“

Conway accused CNN of running its story based on anonymous sourcing, referring to CNN’s coverage of classified documents alleging Russian operatives claimed to have compromising information about Trump that CNN reported were presented to the president-elect at the intelligence briefing, a point Conway disputed.

Conway continued to accuse the cable network of reporting on unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims to which Cooper replied that they did not report on the “raw material” contained in the 35-page report published by Buzzfeed.

“CNN is not BuzzFeed. I wish you guys would acknowledge and be straightforward. I get why politically it makes sense for you to link CNN with what BuzzFeed did but as Jake Tapper said on the air, he doesn't approve. He's one of the reporters on this. He doesn't approve of what BuzzFeed did. I would not have dumped all this unsubstantiated allegations. It's unfair.”

“But now that it's out there, CNN is all too happy to refer to it, aren’t you?” Conway said.

“We have not mentioned it on the air or talked about the details on the air,” Cooper said.

“It's on CNN.com. Now you'll get lots of clicks,” Conway said, even though CNN has not published the complete report or linked to BuzzFeed’s story in their online report.

“CNN and BuzzFeed have a lot in common. You both were absolutely convinced and told your viewers that Hillary Clinton would win this election,” Conway said.

“You can’t stick to what we’re talking about now?” Cooper replied.

Conway further questioned CNN’s reason for reporting on the briefing.

“If the four intelligence officials that gave the top secret briefing last week that some fools think they should leak to the media when it's a top secret intelligence briefing for a reason so that we're all protected, everybody, then why according to your own report last night, 'report' used as a loose word here, why do they not tell the president-elect about it? Because your own reporting says that there's no confirmation that they briefed him orally,” Conway said.

“Because if it’s significant enough to be in the briefing documents, then it seems significant,” Cooper argued.

“I know CNN is feeling the heat,” Conway said at one point.

“I think you guys are feeling the heat,” Cooper replied.

“What heat do we feel? That you got this raw information, this complete ridiculous fake news, actually just fake —“ Conway said, before Cooper interrupted her to remind her their reporting had been backed up by “not only multiple sources but other news agencies,” a point Conway disputed.

Earlier at a press conference, Trump refused to take a question from CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta on the Trump transition's pushback on its original report, calling the cable news channel "fake news."

Later on Wednesday night, journalist Carl Bernstein defended his reporting for CNN on the report, calling Conway a "propaganda minister."

"It's time to talk about what we do as journalists and whatpropaganda ministers do and that is what she is is a propaganda minister. What we've seen here tonight is a deconstruction of the journalistic process. And we did our work and you can deconstruct it and it comes down to, look, the chief officials of the United States intelligence community believed they had something urgent enough to bring to the attention of the president and the president-elect of the united States. That is a story," he said.